Wednesday, August 17, 2005

{Alas, the trip is done. Still have many more pics and more travelogue -- will catch that up eventually, but the moment is begging to be philosophized. In one sense, nothing's changed - back to dueling with Mr. Chap over at Chapomatic. We've got one pissing contest going over whether the US is weaker and Iran stronger in the Middle East (my position, duh) and another one going on over Cindy Sheehan (huge surprise). This is slightly adapted from a comment I made earlier today at Chap's. You may want to read Reagan biographer Edmund Morris's column first, but do it on an empty stomach.)

Morris writes: “A president has to protect himself from emotional predators, or he’d be sucked dry within a week of taking office.”

Thanks to Edmund Morris’s counseling, it’s all clear now. Cindy Sheehan was the former assistant to Dr. Adams on Tantalus Five, home to the Tantalus Penal Colony, which viciously used the neural neutralizer on its inmates, destroying their minds in the process. “Dammit, Jim, if we let the President talk to her, he’ll having nothing left for his bike ride with Lance Armstrong; we don't dare leave him alone with her!”

Cindy Sheehan warming up her neural neutralizer technique on Capt. James T. Kirk before moving on to President Bush.

Or maybe she’s one of those space vampires depicted in LifeForce, who sought victims to drain of, well, their “lifeforce.”

Or maybe she’s a Skeksis from Dark Crystal who wants to drain the essence from the G. (Gelfling) W. Bush.

Skeksis Cindy Sheehan

G. (Gelfling) W. Bush

If Morris has W pegged as someone who is truly at high risk from consorting with the likes of Cindy Sheehan, then the wimp factor rears its ugly head.

While we’re on the sucking metaphor, I’m reminded of Lincoln’s wry observation when inundated by thousands of office seekers: “There’s too many pigs for the teats.” This from a President who faced a far more dire situation than the current occupant, who, nevertheless, found time to speak to the applicants as well as dealing with a wife and cabinet who were far more emotionally predatory than W’s complement.

It’s noteworthy that Morris was easily able to catalog the connection with emotion and the average American of past Presidents but did not cite a single example of the current President doing the same. I do remember one, W’s speech at the National Cathedral in the wake of 9/11. For me, it was his finest moment as President. I don’t think Bush is unable to emote or connect -- it’s that he chooses not to. It’s especially the case that he chooses not to connect with the emotion or the person who challenges his view of the world. He keeps all such persons at a distance, and when they intrude on either his physical or psychological space, they are physically and metaphysically dismissed. Classic dry drunk behavior -- the list includes:

Pomposity

Exaggerated self-importance

A rigidly judgmental outlook

Impatience

Childish behavior

Irresponsible behavior

Irrational rationalization

Projection

Overreaction

Bush's psychological space is so fragile, his grip on reality so tenuous, that potential challenges cannot be countenanced.

It’s no secret that W has earned the nickname Bubble Boy. He has prided himself on his isolation from American opinion – he doesn’t read newspapers. As his campaign rallies and Social Security "Town Hall Meetings" attest, he can only attend events where the guests are carefully vetted, and prefers to appear in front of crowds of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines whose fealty (at least on camera) is automatic. He hasn’t attended one single military funeral. And the one time he did meet with Cindy Sheehan, he said, upon entering the room with his usual aplomb and decorum, “So who are we honoring here?”

The President hasn’t only protected himself from “emotional predators”, he’s protected himself from ANYTHING that challenges in the remotest sense, his view of reality, a view which is a wholesale construct of an inner dialogue between his Id and his Ego, whom he calls “God.”